quash said:
whiterock said:
quash said:
whiterock said:
quash said:
I'm not a skeptic of the war. I'm an opponent.
There are no direct American interests involved.
There are costs involved, funded by more debt. Dollar printer goes whoosh.
Budget concerns are valid.
Assertion we have no interest in outcome is not.
I didn't say that.
But since you replied tell me the direct American interest at play.
I've stated them here many times.
First, there are textbook balance of power issues. Ukraine is the shatterzone between Russia and Nato...the buffer between two great powers. Yes, Russia has interests in what happens in Ukraine. Nato also has interests in what happens in Ukraine. Those concerns are mirror images of one another: for the same reason that Russia does not want Nato troops/bases stationed in Ukraine, NATO does not want Russian troops stationed in Ukraine. The importance of this consideration should be obvious to any rational observer. If you do not maintain equilibrium or better in the shatterzone, your security position is sharply degraded.
Second, are the consequences of Russian consolidation over Ukraine. Russian armies and weapon systems are now poised 800m closer to Nato. That creates a "gunboat diplomacy" dynamic that will have a chilling effect on countries in the eastern flank of Nato. It will sharpen the "EU vs Russia" argument in each country, which means these nations will swing more sharply on that question as administrations come & go in the democratic process. Even the staunchly pro-EU/Nato nations/administrations will have to temper their policies with the reality that a Russian army is right there across the border (as opposed to some future threat 800m away). Bottom line, the Nato alliance gets more unwieldy. Yes, it is obvious Nato would win a war against Russia. But the costs of winning the war are so great that they increase the power of the arguments of the doves, and that dynamic empowers Russia. Russia knows this. That's why they leave scorched earth wherever their armies encamp. Russia does not need to win wars via shock and awe to be powerful. They just have to threaten their opponents with a 25-round cage match that will leave blood, teeth, chunks of hair, and parts of ears, lips & noses on the canvas. Very few people are willing to lose every round of a savage beathing but keep going until their opponent quits. Russia is. Proudly. Bloody toothed grinning thru stringy snotty blood hanging in long tendrils from split lips proudly. That is the real source of Russian power - the fear that Russia will destroy you whether they win the war or not.
Third, proximity gives Russia a far easier time meddling in the democratic processes of those nations. Russia will have an easier time destabilizing the regimes themselves. Little green men did the dirty work in Crimea. Putin actually denied they were Russian. Little green men are already at work in Moldova. How will Nato deal with them in Romania? What happens when a coup occurs in any of the eastern rim of Nato....and the new govt announces unilateral withdrawal from Nato & invites in the Russian army? That is only possible at the moment in the Baltic states. The number more than doubles if Ukraine goes the way of Belarus, or worse. Russia will never invade Nato. Russia will destabilize it. Ukraine is instructive. Look what the TRIED to do. And look at the consequences.
The direct interest is Nato. Nato is a strategic American interest. Thanks to Nato, we are obligated to go to war WITH RUSSIA to protect Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. Allowing Russia to advance their armies 800m to the borders of more of those countries is a direct threat to Nato.....a direct threat to our girls and boys in uniform, who do rotate thru temporary military assignments to those countries....who are as we have this discussion are doing combat patrols on air land and sea to deter further Russian aggression. MY daughter was on the ramparts for us for the first 5 months of this war.....80 hour weeks, 600x normal fuel consumption, expanding a logistical base to support not 1 airfame but 4 (in a couple of weeks)....
History is instructive on this: WWII started over western treaty obligations to Poland.
The myopia of the critics of the war about what is happening and what is at stake is profound, to the point of detachment from reality, in no small part due to a massive cause-effect error in perception: we did not escalate Nato operations because of our support for Ukraine in the war. We did it because the Russian advance into Ukraine was a a direct threat to Nato Support for Ukrainian govt flows from that.
Russia has no rights in Ukraine. only interests.
Nato has interests, too.
An independent Ukraine is not a threat to either Russia or Nato.
But Russia could not tolerate an independent Ukraine building greater ties to the west. Russia wanted a Ukraine dependent on Russia. And then there's the real cause of the war - Russian nationalism, Russian patriarchy over East Slav nations. Russia frankly does not consider Ukraine a "real country" but rather part of greater Russia. They got tired of the great game in the Ukrainian shatterzone (which has been going badly for them for the last 10 years) and decided they didn't have to put up with it any more. They could just retake Ukraine, easily, and be done with the nonsense. Boy were they wrong about that.
Our task here is simple: we have to put great big clumps of Russian blood, teeth, chunks of hair, and parts of ears, lips & noses on the canvas....to make THEM holler uncle. To let them know that they have miscalculated....that Nato will not wait to be invaded to fight back. That Nato will play in the shatterzone as earnestly as Russia will, only better.....and yes, we can go 50 rounds if we need to.
You want to avoid major power conflict between Russia and Nato? Best way to do that is to teach Russia that a miscalculation in the shatterzone is an existential threat to Russia.
None of those are direct American interests. Not one.
Several layers of false in that statement.
1) NATO is a long-standing strategic interest of the United States of America.
2) NATO has a strategic interest in the balance of power in Europe. Indeed, the raison d'etre for Nato
IS the balance of power in Europe.
3) NATO has a strategic interest in the stability and policies of nations along its borders.
4) NATO has a strategic interest in the status, capabilities, and basing of Russian armies. NATO's strategic security position is seriously degraded when Russia invades an incorporates into satellite status a nation of 50m people with contiguous borders to Nato.
You cannot on one hand defend NATO as a strategic interest of the USA, an interest so great we forward station ARMIES to defend it, and simultaneously maintain that the strategic interests of NATO are of no direct interest to the USA.Now, if you said "we have no strategic interests in Ukraine," I would agree.
The next step down is "direct interest." We do have that, via NATO.
The answer would be different if we were talking about Kazakhstan or Mongolia or Burma or Rwanda or Uruguay. But we are not. We are talking about the largest country in Europe (in size) with substantial mineral resources and industrial capabilities, as well as strategic positions along the longest single land border NATO has, land & sea. Sending materiel, training troops, etc....without direct involvement of US troops....is an entirely appropriate level of involvement to maintain the independence and stability of a country of strategic interest to NATO allies.
Note: it's more complicated than the "country by country" prism in which this discussion is occurring. Actions and players matter, too. It matters not to US interests whether Ecuador or Peru controls the Galapagos Islands. But if China or Russia were to seize them, it would be a strategic issue to US interests, a direct threat to the ability of the US navy to reposition assets from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Similarly, a border conflict between Ukraine and either Moldova or Belarus would be of interest to NATO only to the degree to which the conflict affected stability (invited intervention of others) in the shatterzone. The border itself really would not matter much. That latter context is the one in which the current war occurs - a Russian intervention in the shatterzone that upends strategic balance, drastically increasing strategic threats to NATO. Our response - supporting Ukrainian efforts to maintain its independence with financial and military aid - goes beyond the level of "appropriate" and lands squarely in the "necessary" category.
